Date Night
by Julie Anna T
Summary: Nico thinks he is going on a date with Percy and Percy is clueless as always.
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO, Rick Riordan does. And I'm not getting any money to write this fanfiction either.**

**A/N: I got this request on Tumblr to write a story where Nico thinks he's going on a date with Percy and Percy is clueless and screws everything up. So, just to let you know, this is kind of sad. Sorry.**

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**Date Night**

_by Julie Anna T._

* * *

It is Friday. It is apparently an ordinary summer night. It is hot as fuck outside. And Nico is nervous.

Really nervous.

Anxious.

Almost having a heart attack, actually.

He shouldn't be so nervous, he knows it, but he can't really help it. He has already planned everything meticulously, but that knowledge is not enough to stop the butterflies in his stomach. Gods, he sounds like a school girl, but that's something he can't stop. He's going on a date with Percy Jackson, for gods' sake! He has a great reason to be nervous.

Nico walks through Camp Half-Blood and stops only when he reaches Cabin 3, not really paying attention on anything, or anyone, else on his way. He takes a deep breath, to calm down a little, then knocks. Percy opens the door short after.

And Nico gets even more nervous, because the mere sight of the son of Poseidon makes his heart race inside his chest.

"Ready to go?" he asks and he is surprised how calm his voice sounds.

"Yeah!" Percy says grinning, "Let's go."

The son of Poseidon steps out of his cabin and closes the door behind him. He reaches for Nico's hand and hold it tight, unaware of the effects that this simple gesture has on Nico.

"Hold on, then." Nico warns and, soon, they disappear into the shadows.

* * *

They reappear right next to the cinema, in the middle of a small crowd. How the mist will work to cover the sudden appearance of two teenagers, neither of them know and they don't really care either.

"I'll buy the tickets." Percy says casually, letting go of Nico's hand. The son of Hades feels the loss of the guy's warm hand on his, but he says nothing about it.

"I'll buy something for us to eat, then." Nico adds.

"Great! I'm kinda hungry." Percy says moments before he walks away to buy their tickets. The son of Poseidon is half-way to the line, when he remembers something and stops, turning to face Nico once more "Oh! And get us lots of candy, please!"

Nico chuckles, amused, and nods. The cold feeling on his stomach is slowly going away, as he feels more comfortable around Percy by each second.

* * *

It's been almost half an hour since the movie started and Nico is almost done with his popcorn. The movie is pretty good and it catches his attention, although it does have a bit more explosions and action scenes than the movies the son of Hades is used to watch.

"Nico, did you buy any blue candy?" Percy whispers, during the movie.

Nico stops paying attention to the screen and stares blankly at the guy beside him. He curses himself mentally for forgetting such an important detail; how could he forget about the blue food?

"No, I didn't." he answers, feeling super stupid at the moment "Wait here, I'll go get some for you."

He hopes he doesn't sound so desperate as he is actually feeling. Everything he wants is that date to be perfect, so Nico doesn't mind missing part of the movie to go buy blue candy if this means making Percy happy.

"No, you don't need to." Percy says reaching for Nico's arms and stopping him before he can stand up "I'll go buy it myself. It's not like we're on a date, or anything."

Percy stands and go buy his candy, while Nico stays where he is, in silence and trying to gather all the pieces of his heart that has just been broken.

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**Like it? Hate it? Let me know what you think. :)**


	2. Part II

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO, Rick Riordan does. :)**

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**Part II: Making Amends**

Tick-tock goes the clock, and Percy is bored.

Extremely bored.

It's September. It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon and Camp Half-Blood is almost empty because most part of the campers has already gone back home. Percy lies in his bed with nothing interesting to do and no one to keep him company. _Nico_ is not there to keep him company and to make his day better. It's been three days since Percy last saw Nico and the son of Poseidon is growing worried about it.

"Where is Nico, then?" he wonders.

Because on the last couple of months, Nico was the only continuous presence on Percy's life and now that he is not there, Percy misses the son of Hades' company a lot. Of course, Percy still has the few campers to whom he teaches sword fight and swimming and he also has Chiron, but it's not the same. Those campers are his students and Chiron is his teacher and mentor; Nico is his friend and someone he cares a lot about, it's just different.

"Where are you, dumb head?" he mumbles to himself, sighing.

Percy stares blankly at the ceiling of his cabin, trying to find a reason for Nico's sudden absence, but, of course, nothing comes to his mind.

Typical.

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Teaching sword fight to small kids is usually very fun. Percy loves seeing those young, and sometimes still chubby, faces watching him with so much concentration as he gives instructions about movements and how important is to stay always alert to your adversary's advances. He loves seeing the awe on their cute faces when they first find out that _the_ Percy Jackson is going to be their teacher, although he couldn't care less about his title of 'Savior of Olympus'(twice).

He just loves what he does and usually has lots of fun doing it, but that day Percy was clearly too distracted to have any kind of fun with his students; even the kids noticed their teacher's lack of attention.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jackson, I didn't mean to hurt you." A 13 year-old girl from Aphrodite says, with her beautiful hazel eyes widened and full of regret.

"I'm okay, Dana, don't worry." Percy assures the kid, giving the poor girl no chance for new apologies.

It is not her fault her teacher is distracted; Percy is the one who can't stop thinking about Nico's absence and how much he misses the son of Hades, so he can't blame his student for actually injuring his arm; she was only doing as she was told, after all.

"Let's end our class here, okay?" the son of Poseidon announces, "We can continue this tomorrow afternoon."

The kids stop their training and follow their teacher instructions, gathering their equipment and packing their material.

"Are you sure you're okay, Mr. Jackson?" Dana asks still unsure and Percy just smiles at her.

"Yes, I'm fine, it's nothing serious" he replies, attaching Riptide to his belt before changing the subject completely "You did great today, Dana. I'm really proud of how much you've improved."

The girl's cheeks turn crimson red and she looks away from her teacher, embarrassed. Percy holds back a laugh, but loops his arm around the kid's shoulder and gives it a light squeeze.

"Come on, let's help the others with the equipment." He says, leading Dana to where her friends were gathered.

She follows, still with a blush on her face, and Percy says nothing about it. He's used to some of his students, specially the girls, acting shyly around him and pretends not to notice it. It's better that way, he does not want to embarrass the poor kids.

* * *

He takes care of the injury on his arm as soon as he gets to his cabin. It's nothing to worry about, just a large cut that looks more serious than it actually is, so the son of Poseidon just cleans it and applies some medicine; he doesn't even bother eating ambrosia, because it doesn't seem necessary.

"Percy?" a voice echoes in his room, coming out of nowhere and giving Percy the hell of a fright.

He spins around, trying to find the source of that freaking voice, with his arm still half covered in bandages. Close to his bed, where he has been taking care of his injury, Percy can see Jason watching him with those electric blue eyes from his room on Camp Jupiter. The blond is wearing his usual purple camp shirt and, even with the poor light surrounding him, Percy notices he looks extremely tired.

"Don't do this!" The son of Poseidon scolds, "You almost gave me a heart-attack."

"Sorry, man," Jason says with a sigh "I thought you were still training the kids."

"Got injured, had to end the class sooner." Percy explains, showing his bandaged arm.

"Are you alright?"

Percy nods dismissively, showing to his friend that that is not a big deal and he is fine, thanks.

"So, what do I owe the honor of receiving a call from the almighty son of Jupiter?"

Jason ignores his friend's teasing, because he is too tired to deal with Percy's childishness at that time. Instead of teasing back, Jason explains Piper is thinking about making a dinner party next Saturday and asked him to invite Percy and some other friends.

They talk about other things, after Percy agrees on going. They haven't seen each other for quite some time, since Jason and Piper now live in New Rome and Percy basically stays at Camp Half-Blood 365 days per-year. It's good to hear about his friends; it's good to know they're okay and happy with their lives.

"So, how was the date?" Jason asks, changing the subject "Did you guys have fun?"

"What date?" Percy says, understanding nothing that the other is talking about, "What exactly are we talking about?"

Confusion is all over Jason's face and the son of Jupiter frowns; his head cocked to the side, as he stares at Percy.

"About your date with Nico, of course, what other date could it be?" the blond says with a puzzled look, "Nico said you were going out a couple of days ago."

Percy still stares blankly at his friend for some seconds, before his brain finally clicks the pieces together and reality strikes him with no mercy.

Nico's weird behavior when they left the cinema.

His evasive answers when Percy asked him what was wrong.

His absence for the last three days.

Percy's face turns into a mask of horror and regret, as a single word escapes his mouth.

"Fuck!"

* * *

"Nico, there's a letter here for you!" Hazel shouts from the living room.

The son of Hades raises his eyebrows in surprise. He didn't say to anyone that he was going to visit his sister in New Rome, how is even possible he has received a letter?

Leaving his book on the bedside table, he gets out of bed and heads to the living room, where Hazel is opening her mail.

"Are you sure it's for me?" He asks, sitting on the couch with his sister; a blanket wrapped around him.

"It has your name on it, of course it's for you."

He takes the envelope his sister is offering and stares at it with curiosity. It does have his name on it, but this fact just makes him even more curious. Who the hell could have sent him that?

"You will never know who sent if you just keep staring at it." Hazel laughed, as if reading his brother's mind as she always does.

"I know." Nico mutters.

Taking care not to rip the envelope in two, he opens it and fishes a sheet of paper inside. It's not a proper letter, he soon finds out, but its content immediately brings a small smile to the son of Hades lips.

In Percy's messy handwriting, the letter says:

_"__I'm sorry I fucked up our first date. What do you think of another one? A __proper__ one, this time._

_PS: Give me another chance. :)"_

"Idiot." Nico says shaking his head, but the smile never leaves his lips.

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**I felt really bad about the first part, so I wrote another chapter to mend all hearts I broke. Sorry. :)**

**Tell me if you liked it.**


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